The 5 most interesting messages in the latest Clinton email dump

More than 900 emails from Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state went public for the first time on Friday night, although the State Department failed to meet a judge’s deadline to get the full set of 30,000 messages released.

The new batch of messages runs the gamut, covering topics from Guantanamo to Haiti to the progress of President Barack Obama’s health-care plan.

There are also fresh examples of phenomena illustrated by previous email dumps, such as Clinton’s struggles with technology and her dependence on outside adviser Sidney Blumenthal for intelligence on a variety of subjects.

The latest set of emails emerged just three days before Clinton’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination faces an early test in the Iowa caucuses, scheduled for Monday.

Here’s a look at some of the more insightful and entertaining messages among the latest emails, released in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit:

Clinton no fan of “info sharing”

“Just goes to show, info sharing not your friend,” Clinton wrote in a July 24, 2009 message to her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills.

While the sentiment could fuel suspicions about the former secretary of state and first lady being averse to transparency, the subject of this particular exchange seems to be fairly mundane: a speech Clinton was planning on the Obama Administration’s “food security” initiative.

As President Barack Obama’s signature health-care reform proposal bogged down in Congress in 2009, Clinton paid close attention.

In a May 26, 2009 email, longtime Clinton adviser Neera Tanden passed on “hush hush” information that the Senate Finance Committee was considering a variant of the so-called “public option” — one or more government-run health-care plans that could exist alongside private ones. Tanden said she was pushing for a “cost trigger” that would allow a public plan if costs went too high.

“All of this is super secret,” wrote Tanden, then part of the health care legislative team at the Department of Health and Human Services. Ultimately, no public option was part of the Affordable Care Act passed by Congress in 2010.

Tanden also indicated in the same email exchange that she was ready to make sure Clinton got credit if some of her policy ideas emerged in the final bill.

“Lots of things could fall in the direction of your campaign proposal — a mandate with a smallish version of the exclusion along with a premium cap. That’s by no means assured, but if it does break that way, I will try to ensure I’m not the only one who notices (between us, of course),” Tanden wrote.

In a recent Democratic debate, Clinton squared off with Sanders about the viability of the single-payer health plan he favors. She noted that the milder “public option” form of that idea didn’t fly legislatively seven years ago. “Even when the Democrats were in charge of the Congress, we couldn’t get the votes for that,” Clinton said.

Clinton not enthralled by nerd prom, aide says

The annual White House Correspondents Dinner, sometimes fondly called the “nerd prom,” has become Washington’s biggest social event of the year. But Clinton disliked such rubber-chicken gatherings, one of the new emails suggests.

“I remember you saying once that it was one of the huge downsides of the job, having to attend and speak at four of these a year,” communications aide Philippe Reines wrote in a May 19, 2009 message to Clinton. Reines appeared to be referring to a broader set of dinners presidents often attended, including the Gridiron, the Radio and TV Correspondents dinner and the White House News Photographers dinner.

Reines also claimed credit for giving Obama a joke he made at the White House correspondents’ dinner that alluded to tension between the former rivals for the presidency and to concerns about swine flu in Mexico. “These days we could not be closer,” the president said. “In fact, the second she got back from Mexico, she pulled me into a hug and gave me a big kiss — told me to get down there myself.”

“I have to plead guilty to the joke about you/him/Mexico,” Reines wrote.

Clinton aide jarred by Biden diplomacy

A top deputy to Clinton, Kurt Campbell, told Clinton that traveling with Vice President Joe Biden overseas is starkly different from being on the road with her or any other practiced diplomat.

“What an adventure,” exclaimed Campbell in an August 18, 2011 email recounting travels in China with Biden on a trip the press dubbed an outing in “noodle diplomacy.”

“Its [sic] like a Disney ride with dips and spins and surprises around every bend,” said Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.

“Is it sort of like W and beach volleyball?” Clinton asked, referring to President George W. Bush’s visit to the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing. While talking with members of the U.S. beach volleyball team there, Bush startled some by slapping one player on her bare lower back, apparently at her request.

“There’s no talking in beach ball,” replied Campbell. “It’s unlike any diplomacy I have seen. Any possible topic or reference or poet or Irish lyric or historical reference or 60s pop culture data point can appear with little or no warning. Entertaining but unpredictable.”

Jake Sullivan, senior foreign policy guru and human TV guide

Clinton had the Olympics on the mind again about a year later, when she added a quick request to an email exchange involving such esoteric matters as Germany’s influence over the European Central Bank.

“What time is the 100 meters final?” Clinton asked Director of Policy Planning Jake Sullivan in an August 5, 2012 email.

Sullivan came through for his boss.

“10:50 our time. Womens 400 at 10:15 I believe” he replied.

Jamaican Usain Bolt won the 100 meters in a time of 9.63 seconds. American Sanya Richards-Ross took the 400 meter gold in 49.55 seconds.

Clinton and Sullivan’s exchange on the subject is now officially classified as a national security secret, apparently due to the sensitivity of the central bank intelligence relayed by Clinton friend Sid Blumenthal and not due to the discussion of Olympic track and field.

Rachael Bade contributed.

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Veritas-Semper

The only thing we learn from this piece is that Mr. Gerstein loves gossip. He wouldn’t know what real news looks like if it hit him in the face, although, it did. Mr. Gerstein is simply wasting his substantial talents here.

The elephant in the room is the fact that the new batch DOES NOT include 22 e-mails. Nada, none of them. Not even redacted versions.

Why? Because they were so top secret none of them will see the light of day, ever! This adds ta list of nearly 1800 e-mails (so far) which were secret.

Hillary is ready for the House all right: the “Big House”!

Posted on 1/30/16 | 12:25 PM CEST

Tony Rivera

I liked Mrs. Clinton very much,I also was marked and after suffering head trauma, I was forced to get my name back and was marked a Greater name.I’m not sick anymore. I know that. As long as she continue staying in the race. I guess it’s not going to stop.